TIFF 2011: KEYHOLE

The applause was tepid for the world premiere of Guy Maddin's Keyhole, in which Maddin architects a house haunted with phantasmagoric hints of Homer and all the polymorphously perverse erotics that dreams allow. His admitted genre hybrid between "ghosts & gangsters", might take 10 years (as Udo Kier suggested during the post-screening Q&A) for audiences to understand, appreciate, or value. Myself, I admired the look of the film, its multilayered visuals, its sound design, and its oneiric approximations, but found myself wishing for more comic relief or at least one narrative tether to daytime logic. It could be argued that Maddin is at his best when he is making films for himself, but this is one dream I wish could have been shared a bit more generously with his audience.